My new favorite draft hopeful

As someone who is, shall we say, vertically challenged, the NFL scouting combine is often an exercise in looking people in the eye only when they are sitting down and I am not.

And after attending more than 20 of these annual events, here’s hoping Trindon Holliday gets a fair look from the NFL decision-makers in the weeks leading up to the April draft.

For Holliday, a return specialist from LSU, is believed to be the shortest position player to ever attend this event.

“Five-five and a quarter,” Holliday said Thursday morning when asked how he measured out officially. And because of that a player with breath-taking speed — the eight-time track All American will likely be either THE fastest or one of the fastest players on any draft board — is fighting an uphill battle simply because of the tape measure.

Football is a game that consistently favors the large over the small. So, Holliday, who once passed up a chance Team USA in the World Track and Field Championships because it would have taken away his time from the football team at LSU, will now try to convince the league he can fit somewhere in it.

Holliday will run his 40-yard dash Saturday and hopes to put his time in the rarified air that is sub-4.3 seconds. It’s certainly possible since he said he has run a 4.21 in his workouts leading up to the combine.

“I want to show I’m a guy you can count on and make plays for your team,” Holliday said.

Holliday, who had spot duty as a running back at LSU as well as being the team’s returner, certainly faces a difficult challenge in finding his way on to a roster. He scored on four returns in college — two kickoff and two punt — to go with four rushing touchdowns.

Stranger things have happened and maybe, just maybe, there is one team who can find a spot for the shortest player now facing some of the longest odds.

Nicki Jhabvala is a Broncos beat writer for The Denver Post. She was previously the digital news editor for sports. Before arriving in Denver, she spent five years at Sports Illustrated working primarily as its online NBA editor. She also spent two years as a home page editor at the New York Times.